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"Accident," Harper said with a roll of his eyes. "Ac-ci-dent. You read a lot; I'm sure you've seen the word. They happen. I'm fine." Unfortunately he was croaking more than saying, and he knew it, and Tyr's scowl wasn't fading even marginally. Not that Harper had particularly enjoyed returning to consciousness in the middle of convulsions while his rebreather forced far more water than he liked from his lungs, but it was what it was, and hey, he wasn't dead. Take the win and all that. A few days with a scratched up throat and whatever you called internally-bruised lungs were a lot better than the alternative.

"You weren't breathing," Tyr repeated.

"But now I am. See." The demonstration would've gone better if his attempt to draw a deep breath wasn't immediately interrupted by a coughing fit, and the fact that Tyr barely touched him rather than thumping his back the way he would have yesterday didn't exactly make him feel better. "Come on, Tyr," he said when he got his breathing under control again. "I've spent most of my life dodging Ubers who wanted—"

The look on Tyr's face was enough to send his teeth clicking together mid-sentence, and then Tyr was out the door.

"Tyr! T—" Another coughing fit cut him off, and by the time he could speak again Tyr was long gone. It only took a second of review to realize what he'd said wrong, and while hadn't meant it like that—he hadn't meant Tyr at all—that had been exactly the wrong time for the U-word to escape. Especially when he knew that Tyr was already blaming himself for what happened. He slapped both hands down against the bunk. "Damn it!"

Unfortunately by the time he got to the door Tyr was out of sight, and trying to chase him down would be a pointless exercise even if he thought he could make it to the end of the dock without coughing fit number whatever. Which he couldn't. Possibly he wouldn't even be able to make it to the end of the dock at all the way his legs felt.

He returned to the bed and boosted himself back onto it with still-shaky arms. His lungs were likely to be the sticking point for getting back to normal, but unless he missed his guess just about every muscle in his body was going to ache for a few days too. Also damn it.

It wasn't even like Tyr had been trying to play rough. He knew full well Harper didn't have the same lung capacity that he did, and from what Harper had understood, he'd cut his expectations down by two-thirds to account for that. It was just that the average Nietzschean could hold his breath for nearly twenty minutes without great difficulty, and Tyr could never be average so he was a bit beyond that. And a third of twenty-some was still more than the average human could handle, especially without any prep time. Harper did know some of the tricks for holding his breath longer, anyone who'd ever played dodge-the-Uber—Nietzschean—did since hyperventilating was a dead give away, but by the time he'd realized that he had a problem he'd already burned too much oxygen for them to be of use.

Harper scowled at the bag sitting out of reach on the floor at the head of the bunk and then sighed and lowered himself back down. And decided to sit on the floor for a while instead of trying to get back up after he'd found his communicator.

"Tyr?"

No response.

"Come on, Tyr, I didn't mean it like that. Or I didn't mean you, anyway." Because Tyr knew full well that he meant it about other Nietzscheans. "I just meant that I've spent most of my life dodging people who wanted to hurt me. This time...well, for once it was just an accident. You pulled me back up as soon as you knew something was wrong. And anyway, I'm fine."

Still nothing, and he glared at the communicator. His had some functions that Tyr's didn't, or at least didn't yet, and one of those involved being able to find Tyr, but even if he knew where Tyr had gone it wasn't like he'd be able to get to him. Of course, he could try, and he was pretty sure that Tyr would come find him if he got hurt, but leaving himself vulnerable in some random location on a random vacation planet was not his idea of a great plan.

He touched the communicator again. "Can you at least bring back dinner? We ate most of the sandwich supplies this morning."


Tyr let himself back into Harper's room with more than a few misgivings. He'd originally gone back to the ship and planned to stay there, but... He shook his head. It was because of him that Harper was in no fit state to be helping himself right now; he could at least ensure that he had adequate supplies.

Whether he was willing to go beyond adequate supplies to helping Harper back to the ship rather than leaving him here on this vacation planet he hadn't decided yet. He hadn't mean to hurt the little professor, obviously, but intentions were irrelevant in the end, and Harper could easily have died at his hands this morning. His grip tightened on the food case he carried. Harper would have no trouble finding work to occupy himself on this planet, and he clearly had missed being in the water, as absurd as Tyr still found the sport. It would probably be better for all concerned if Tyr did leave him behind.

"I was afraid you weren't coming," a voice said out of the darkness as the door shut behind him.

Tyr growled in annoyance. He'd hoped that Harper would be asleep by now.

The light came on, and Harper stuck his tongue out. "Did you bring food?"

"I did." He hesitated for a moment and then brought the case over to where Harper was curled on the far bench, sinking down to sit on the floor in front of him. The little professor still looked too pale, even for him, but at least his lungs sounded clearer now. "You should be asleep."

"I did that earlier."

His voice was still rougher than it should be, and Tyr took the opportunity to probe at him for a moment. Unusually enough, Harper held still until he finished.

"I didn't mean you, Tyr. You know that, right?"

"It is of no consequence." He'd had more important things to worry about than name-calling today, even if that particular term did set his teeth on edge.

"No, it's not. That's like saying that it doesn't matter whether or not you meant to dunk me too long. Hey." He tugged at Tyr's sleeve and rolled his eyes at the raised hand he got in return.

"I clearly don't beat you frequently enough." It was more an automatic reply than anything else, and if Tyr been thinking he'd never have said it, but...habits.

"Which is why you've never found yourself on the wrong side of an airlock."

Tyr frowned and then shifted around so they could actually look at each other without contortion on anyone's part. That was more serious than Harper's usual response to that comment—assuming he deigned to notice it at all, which he mostly didn't these days—and his fingers were still locked on Tyr's sleeve.

Harper stared past Tyr for a moment and then shook his head. "You know how bad you scared me back on Andromeda? In the beginning, I mean?"

"Badly enough," Tyr said after a moment, ruffling his hair lightly. "If I'd realized that the nonsense you kept chattering on about was more than just nonsense, I'd have been a bit more careful about where and when I slept." He hadn't been pleased to discover that weakness in his defenses; overlooking a potential threat simply because he was small and appeared in a constant state of nervousness was the mark of a rank amateur.

"Hey, I am as excellent at running my mouth as everything else," Harper informed him.

"And so modest."

Harper grinned, but it faded just as quickly. "You didn't, though. Hurt me, I mean. Never even a real smack when I was pissing you off about something. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't just because Beka or Dylan would have shot you if you had, either."

"A real blow would break your bones, professor. You're hardly of any benefit to my survival on a bed in medical."

"Yeah, yeah. My point is, I wasn't—I'm still kind of not—exactly used to Nietzscheans who talk to me and treat me like a person."

Tyr couldn't help a real growl at that. "The Drago-Kazov are degenerates who don't deserve to exist, and there is nothing about their behavior that should be considered normal. Of course you're a person. A small and rather poorly built person, but..."

That got a raspberry and then a shrug. "I was born a slave, Tyr. It is what it is. But you're not like them and you said not to call you that so I don't and I wouldn't because you're not like them. Which is also why I know that you'd never hold me underwater on purpose. And don't tell me intent is irrelevant because it's not either. Accidents happen."

"If you were dead, it would be very irrelevant." His jaw tightened. "You very nearly were. Your throat is still raw."

"Not dead. Very un-dead. And my throat will be fine." He jabbed at Tyr's shoulder. "You're my friend and you didn't mean to hurt me and we're both going to deal with it. Especially since I'm not about to let you pull whatever stupid stunt you're planning on to leave me here. Just in case you were wondering."

Tyr had to smile despite himself. "You think you could stop me?"

"I'm an excellent engineer. Anyway, you'd miss me."